A number of hydrocarbons, especially lower-boiling light hydrocarbons, in formation fluids or natural gas are known to form hydrates in conjunction with the water present in the system under a variety of conditions—particularly at the combination of lower temperature and higher pressure. The hydrates usually exist in solid forms that are essentially insoluble in the fluid itself. As a result, any solids in a formation or natural gas fluid are at least a nuisance for production, handling and transport of these fluids. It is further not uncommon for hydrate solids (or crystals) to cause plugging and/or blockage of pipelines or transfer lines or other conduits, valves and/or safety devices and/or other equipment, resulting in shutdown, loss of production and risk of explosion or unintended release of hydrocarbons into the environment either on-land or off-shore. Accordingly, hydrocarbon hydrates have been of substantial interest as well as concern to many industries, particularly the petroleum and natural gas industries.
Hydrocarbon hydrates are clathrates, and are also referred to as inclusion compounds. Clathrates are cage structures formed between a host molecule and a guest molecule. A hydrocarbon hydrate generally is composed of crystals formed by water host molecules surrounding the hydrocarbon guest molecules. The smaller or lower-boiling hydrocarbon molecules, particularly C1 (methane) to C4 hydrocarbons and their mixtures, are more problematic because it is believed that their hydrate or clathrate crystals are easier to form. For instance, it is possible for ethane to form hydrates at as high as 4° C. at a pressure of about 1 MPa. If the pressure is about 3 MPa, ethane hydrates can form at as high a temperature as 14° C. Even certain non-hydrocarbons such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen and hydrogen sulfide are known to form hydrates under certain conditions.
There are two broad techniques to overcome or control the hydrocarbon hydrate problems, namely thermodynamic and kinetic. For the thermodynamic approach, there are a number of reported or attempted methods, including water removal, increasing temperature, decreasing pressure, addition of “antifreeze” to the fluid and/or a combination of these. The kinetic approach generally attempts (a) to prevent the smaller hydrocarbon hydrate crystals from agglomerating into larger ones (known in the industry as an anti-agglomerate and abbreviated AA) and/or (b) to inhibit and/or retard initial hydrocarbon hydrate crystal nucleation; and/or crystal growth (known in the industry as a kinetic hydrate inhibitor and abbreviated KHI). Thermodynamic and kinetic hydrate control methods may be used in conjunction.
Kinetic efforts to control hydrates have included use of different materials as inhibitors. For instance, onium compounds with at least four carbon substituents are used to inhibit the plugging of conduits by gas hydrates. Additives such as polymers with lactam rings have also been employed to control clathrate hydrates in fluid systems. These kinetic inhibitors are commonly labeled Low Dosage Hydrate Inhibitors (LDHI) in the art. KHIs and even LDHIs are relatively expensive materials, and it is always advantageous to determine ways of lowering the usage levels of these hydrate inhibitors while maintaining effective hydrate inhibition.
Quaternary amine chemistry has been proven to be effective as AA for hydrate control. However, water quality and fluids separation upon its application are industrial-wide technical challenges, therefore thwarting its broad field implementation to replace conventional THI methods. Derivatives from quaternary amine technology that itself possesses potentially severe corrosive tendency, such as betaine, also present similar challenges, irrespective of higher raw material cost (RMC) and complex synthesis routes.
Thus, it is desirable if new gas hydrate inhibitors were discovered which would yield comparable or improved results over known gas hydrate inhibitors, and it is also desirable to find new ways of forming gas hydrate inhibitors.